


The Portrait

by bjfic_archivist



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Canon, Drama, Het, M/M, Orgy, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-02
Updated: 2005-09-22
Packaged: 2018-12-26 18:29:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12064614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bjfic_archivist/pseuds/bjfic_archivist
Summary: Based loosely (and sometimes not so loosely) on Oscar Wilde's 'Picture of Dorian Gray'. (Prologue is not representative of the entire fic: it's not a different time fic)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note from IrishCaelan, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Brian_Justin_Fanfiction_Archive). To preserve the archive, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in September 2017. I posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/bjfic/profile).

_A/N: This is sort of a flashback, and I do continue with explanaitions later on. The style is sort of anne rice/jane austen, so try get into all the dramatics. Please be patient with it, I have good feeling about it!_

* * *

“Brian, _do_ stop moving!” Lindsay groaned as her dearest friend turned a quarter inch to the left.

“You promised me that it was nearly complete. I’ve been standing here grinning like a madman for nearly two hours.”

“I never told you to grin,” She replied, brush gliding over the painting’s jaw line, “Or move so much, for that matter. You did that all on your own.”

“Art is always changing. Isn’t that what the modernists say? Far be it from me to deny such philosophies by standing still.” The sunlight streamed in behind him, so his face was shadowed, but the whiteness of his teeth glimmered through as he smirked at his own wit. Lindsay rolled her eyes.

“Don’t talk of modernists to me. I fear I’ve run out of patience with them, they flock here like birds from _Australia_ of all places! Some even talk of starting a school here.”

He scoffed, “Heaven forbid that we should move forward from dull landscapes and portraiture.”

She fluttered and squawked with indignance, and he grinned again. He delighted in vexing his sensitive if not slightly prejudiced friend with suggestion of change. She hated all forms of progress, and still wore the old fashioned garb. He teased her mercilessly, and yet she loved him with an unnerving intensity. He planned to marry her the second his benefactor informed him it was financially viable, which was looking to be in just under a year. Luckily she was still young, not eighteen, and infatuated with nothing but him. And her art. But he could put up with that. There was no future in it, not with art always evolving and Lindsay with her heel dug firmly in the past. 

“It’s almost finished!” she burst out, forgetting her tirade, “I thank you again for sitting for me, Brian. It was most generous.”

“Yes,” he agreed, not bothering with modesty, “I daresay you now owe me something grand in return.”

She grew pink and giggled lightly, “You’ll find this painting will be grand enough a favour.”

His eyes widened, “You wish me to have it? But you wanted it displayed, I’m sure you mentioned it.”

Her eyes darkened and she bit her lip, even as she fleshed out Brian’s on the canvas, “I… I don’t think I’m comfortable with other people seeing it.”

“Why ever not?” he snapped, impatient with her manner, “Is it not glorious? Is it not grand, as you said? Am I so badly disfigured you don’t wish to burden others with such monstrosity?”

She laughed a little, her eyes still dark and shuttered, “It’s not that, but I confess I’m too shy to tell you.”

He smacked the mantel with the flat of his palm, “Now you _must_ tell me, you little tease, with such an intriguing prologue.” 

Lindsay bit her lip again, “I don’t know, really. It feels like a piece of me is in this painting.”

He brayed loudly, “Lindsay, even though you are broad of shoulder and square of jaw, you are no man! How could you see yourself in the painting?”

She coloured, her hand flying dramatically to her forehead, “You say such things to me!” she wept, throwing herself on the nearest chair, “And yet I think so very much of you. Your callousness knows no bounds, Mr Kinney.”

She was performing for him in the way that amused him to no end. She knew it, but he saw real tears on her eyelashes and moved forward.

“My dearest, sweet friend,” he cried, kneeling at her feet, “You know I mock because I love! If you see me treating someone with the utmost respect, know that I hate them with every fibre in me.”

She sniffed, “Oh, I know. I just… this ought not to be mocked, Brian. It’s very serious indeed. When I…” she blinked rapidly, “When I create, when I paint… It’s beautiful because it’s not mine. It belongs to everyone, everyone who looks at it can take a piece of it with them and I don’t fear it. But… this. I’ve put myself into it, parts of my soul, and if someone else takes a piece, they will take a piece of my soul.”

He laughed and she covered her face, “Oh, Mr Kinney! How you hurt me!”

He loved her because of such dramatics. They never ceased to entertain him. He loved to join in, play the part she wanted him to. But he did sense seriousness here.

“Lovely Miss Peterson,” he flattered, “I’m merely puzzled at such a revelation. What triggered this emotional investment? Such attachment you have never shown before.”

She straightened, “You know why, Mr Kinney. I’m sure I’ve not made my feelings a secret.”

He pressed a hand to his chest, thoroughly entertained, “Why, Miss Peterson. How very improper. I ought to turn you over my knee and spank you!”

Lindsay’s head filled with blood and she turned away, “Don’t mock me!”

“I mock because I love, my sweet,” he whispered, the warmth of his breath spreading more colour on her cheeks. He felt a sharp thump in his stomach at the realisation that he could manipulate her this way. Move her and mould her under his will. He _loved_ it!

“I will take your painting,” he said seriously, standing upright and turning, “And I will…”

_Love it._

It was him. His cheekbones, his soft, dark wavy hair catching the light. His slight smirk with the bumblebee mouth and the crimson lips. His jaw, square and slight. His skin pale tinged with rose, contrasting with his dark, finely tailored suit that hugged his deliciously lithe frame.

He breathed in sharply, and stepped forward, half expecting the portrait to step forward with him. It looked like it wanted to. The smirk was sharp and bored, and bright hazel eyes surveyed him lazily. He felt wide open to this-this masterpiece.

“Gorgeous, no?” Lindsay asked gleefully, hand atop his shoulder. He brushed it off. It didn’t feel right, having her touch him so when he was so emotionally aroused by what stood before him. 

“Oh!” he said suddenly, turning his back on it, “Lindsay I cannot bare to look at it. Take it away please. Take it away from me!”

“You don’t like it!” she accused tearfully, and he grabbed her about the shoulders.

“Don’t say such things!” he said, tears clouding his vision, “Don’t speak that way in front of it!”

“Have you lost your mind!?” she shrieked, struggling against his bruising grip.

“Oh Linds!” he cried, thrusting himself at her, “I’m so humbled! And the irony of that is unbearable, I know. _I know!_ I can’t taint it by looking at it this way. Please remove it!”

She held him tightly as he wept into her shoulder. “Oh Brian, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know this would upset you so!” 

“No!” he insisted, “I love it. I love it more than myself and I’m so… happy. So happy you did this. It’s wondrous.”

“Then what’s the problem?” she asked, clearly bewildered.

He pushed her back slightly so she looked into his face, “My eyes. What do you see?”

She sighed dreamily, “Hazel, with a light touch of green.”

Brian shook her slightly, “No! Look past your fancy, woman! What do you see? You see bloodshot eyes from my tears, you see how those tears have cause my eyes to swell and how line of grief now etch themselves around them. But that…” he pointed wildly at the painting, “That will never suffer my fate. He will stay young and delighted and beautiful forever while I rot right before my own eyes!”

She looked slightly stricken, “It’s not a person, Mr Kinney. Don’t talk about it like that.”

“It’s double the man I’ll ever be!” he bawled, “How I envy it! I can’t bare this feeling, Lindsay. Please go. Please go at once. I don’t wish you to see me like this!”

She looked uncertain, but he knew she’d follow out his orders to the letter.

“But… But the painting…”

“ _Leave it!_ ”

She curtseyed slightly, “I will call on you tomorrow.”

“Please go!” he wept, eyes trained religiously on the painting.

He didn’t even hear her leave.

***~***

After three hours he finally moved away, but only to the decanter of brandy on the table three feet away. He returned, glass full, and continued his perusal of the painting. He looked at nothing but himself, himself and the single red rose that was perched on a crystal vase on the mantel behind him.

Not the real one of course, that stood not feet behind the painting, but the one _in_ the painting. The one that sat forlornly to his left and hung in the air, utterly perfect near its utterly perfect human companion. A few of its surrounding petals were shed, so it looked slender and full and bright red. He reached forward and stroked it, and he almost thought he saw the bud grow under his touch, and he shivered in delight. 

The portrait cracked a grin at him, and he leapt back in alarm.

_“You!”_ he cried.

The portrait said nothing.

He sipped on his drink feverishly, “This thing… it makes fun… it _enjoys_ it!”

Its eyes danced and the rose glowed. Brian finished his drink.

“Oh, but you do not deserve this gift!” he slurred at the painting, pouring himself some more liquor, “You don’t move, you don’t think, you do nothing! Why should you have such a gift? Answer me!”

It did not.

“Damn you!” he growled, finishing his second glass. He poured another, the brown liquid sloshing over the sides. 

“You sit there like you know everything, but you don’t, you only know the greatest secret of all and you won’t share it! What good is that!?”

He poured the brandy down his throat, and it burned his tongue and nostrils. He stumbled closer, so he could feel the invisible breath of the portrait on his chin. He trembled and palmed his two-dimensional counterpart on the shoulder. It stared back; satisfied, amused, and utterly content. 

He roared in anger and pushed the portrait back, watching in horror as it toppled backwards against the mantel, sending the rose in the crystal vase to the floor. But it was hardly a rose anymore. Over the day it had shrivelled, its petals had fallen of one by one until all that remained was a brown stalk. The petals fanned over the carpet and the crystal crashed on the floor. 

Brian bellowed as if wounded, clutching at his stomach and leaping for the rose and holding it at his face and imaging its soft sweet scent that he had inhaled when Lindsay first brought it to him. It was nothing now. 

He held it tightly in his fist and turned to the painting that lay awkwardly on its side. And he looked away.

“How sad it is!” he mourned into the stem of the rose, “I shall grow old, and horrid, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day…” He stood and held the stem close to his chest, swaying under the heat of the night and the alcohol that ran through his veins.   
He approached the nearest chaise, rose still held loosely in his fist, sobbing softly and falling upon it, “If it was only the other way! If it was I who were to be always young, and the picture that were to grow old! For this, for this, I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give!”

He spared one last glance for the rose before raising his voice to the ceiling, “Do you hear me!” he screamed, “Nothing!” And promptly passed out.


	2. The Portrait

Approximately 86 years later, Brian Kinney stood in the exact centre of the most glamorous gay nightclub in Pittsburgh and danced without care. Mostly because he had none, but also because care wasn’t needed here. Not in Babylon.

It was 86 years, nine months, four days and sixteen hours since his night with the portrait, and in most respects Brian hadn’t changed since then. But he _had_ changed. Oh lord, he had changed. Modesty was no longer a blip on the proverbial radar of Brian’s personality. Enchantment, delight, surprise, anger, sadness, hate, amusement.

Love.

There wasn’t any of that left, not without a soul. But aside from that, and mastering practically every skill he wished to, Brian was unchanged. He still had the hazel eyes with a touch of green. He still had the cheekbones, the bumblebee mouth with the crimson lips, the body. It no longer required sustenance, however, but could process it if necessary. 

He doesn’t know when exactly he was given this gift, but he knew the second he woke up that he had it. Oddly enough, he noticed the rose first.

It lay on the carpet beside where he slept, its petals soft and covered in light-coloured hair. It felt like human skin. He tried to pluck a petal but it would not come, so he just held the flower closer, red like blood and wine, and inhaled. 

And then he noticed that he wasn’t hung-over. And this was an odd sequence of realisations, because he then noticed that his portrait was weeping and that he didn’t appear to have a soul. And he laughed, but it was a laugh without soul so it sounded like harsh sobbing. And he then proceeded to stab himself in the wrist. Multiple times. It didn’t make a dent in his perfect ivory skin. He felt no surprise, or shock, or horror, or remorse, simply because he was no longer capable of feeling such things. He felt an almost overwhelming sense of apathy, which wasn’t really overwhelming at all because apparently, one required a soul to feel overwhelmed. But not to feel boredom. Not to feel detachment. 

Not to feel nothing. 

He spent his earlier years living out his life. He studied under the finest professors New York had to offer and asked Lindsay to marry him within the year. He danced, he drank, he worked, he fucked his wife from time to time. She never fell pregnant and he gained some satisfaction lightly teasing her because of it, and watched with unfeeling eyes as she broke away, piece by piece. He saw himself in her eyes the day before she killed herself. 

Brian continued to live, and within ten years he noticed that he hadn’t aged with the same indifference as he did with everything else. Everyone else, however, had begun to grow suspicious, and he departed New York for Italy with his large inheritance. And then he began to invest.

Stocks, bonds, houses and hotels to rent, small business. Within the next fifteen years he’d become immensely rich. But he grew tired of business, and he travelled more. France, Germany, Australia, England and everywhere else. And this time, he was not looking to invest.

He was looking for people.

People, with their glorious malleable bodies and light, tinkling voices and the… well, their souls. He became obsessed with them, utterly and completely obsessed. There was a little spark in each human being on the planet, and every time he took one of them, he absorbed the spark for about ten seconds until he fell back into his usual insouciance. It was wonderful. It was heaven. 

He preferred men’s souls, though. They were heavier and harder and went down a lot better. They ground down his throat like he was swallowing a sweet ball of sandpaper. And the bodies were more stable and more interesting by far. From the scratchy hairs on their legs to the stiffness of their lips. 

Make no mistakes though. He has had them all. Almost literally. Both men and women. All of them. But he didn’t do repeats. Not because he didn’t want to, because Brian wanted to do anything and nothing. It’s just once he’d taken a bit of the spark, he couldn’t take it again. It’s why he’d ended up taunting Lindsay to the brink of death. She was his only tie to humanity but he simply had no other use for her, and a tie to humanity meant a tie to one place, and he couldn’t handle that. 

So he fucked his way across history, using his steadily growing income to take him places to find more people. Eventually he found himself in Pittsburgh, and he found he enjoyed (as much as he could) the gay scene there. It was flamboyant and full yet violently repressed. New talent came in daily and old talent more or less left him alone. It was bliss.

And then 86 years, nine months, four days and seventeen hours from his first day since the portrait, something came along that changed everything. 

It’d been a rough night. There was some kind of holiday or something and every decent fag in Pittsburgh had gone with it. He felt bored and boring, itchy under his skin and thick with lethargy.

He needed his fix.

He stumbled into the night, listless and wanting. And suddenly, he felt something, which almost knocked him off his feet. He leaned against a nearby wall.

This had never happened before. Never. He only ever felt when he came. The unfamiliarity of it made him dizzy.

“Are you alright?”

There it was again! He whimpered and looked up. 

It was just a kid. He had hair that was an inch too long and was wearing clothes about a size too big. Everything about him was pale. A rather unimpressive package, really. But he was new. He was different. So, Brian decided to try his luck.

“I’m fine,” he said, practically purring the last word, “And so are you.”

The kid laughed, and it was soft and sweet, and he arched his eyebrow approvingly. Pleasant laughs were hard to find these days. Time had made them rough and raucous.

“Nice line,” the kid said sarcastically, “Seriously, you’re okay?”

“Yes,” he said, growing impatient, “Want to go somewhere?” Okay, it lacked finesse, but he needed this kid. 

“Yeah, sure,” he said brightly, “I’ll go into Babylon, and you can go phone a cab.”

Brian sighed. So he was one of those types, “Would-you-like-to-go-somewhere-with-me?” He recited. 

“Well, as much as I like going home with stoned lunatics…”

_Stoned lunatic?_ He felt indignance before he even realised it, “I’m not stoned.”

The kid shook his head, laughing slightly. He looked tired. Bored. _Done with him_ , “Not interested. Sorry. Would you like me to call you a cab?”

He grabbed the kid’s shoulders swiftly. He’d taken people against their will and he could do it again. It was no big deal. A lot more difficult, but just as good for feeling with. But and a shockwave of feeling rushed through him. He closed his eyes and moaned, “Oh my God…” before falling to his knees. The kid misinterpreted the gesture and kneed him in the face. He didn’t feel that, of course, but the force pushed him onto his back and the kid escaped.

He lay back and breathed, a tear slipping from his eye. He wiped it away tiredly, before staring at it wonderment. His body hadn’t reacted to anything since his night with the portrait. _How was this possible?_

_The kid_ , his mind whispered.

The kid. Yes. He’d done something. Maybe he practiced magic. Maybe he could do something to give Brian back his soul. He trembled with anticipation, almost feeling delight. He sat up. The kid was long gone, he’d have no luck finding him now. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, he was going to find… 

Find…

Brian slapped the pavement in frustration. After all that, he hadn’t even found out the kid’s damn name. 

Oh well, there was still tomorrow. And the rest of eternity.


	3. The Portrait

_A/N: i know it seems these chapters are getting shorter by the second, but I swear I'm not just being slack. It's how the stiry divides. If I had a bit of the next chapter in it would be silly. Anyways, thanks for all the feedback. You guys are awesome._

_p.s: sorry if I fulfill any AU cliches on Justin's life story._

* * *

Brian watched the sky orange as the next day arrived and sighed, reaching for the rose. It had maintained its beauty, just as Brian had, but it too was dead inside. And on the portrait. 

Everywhere he went, he’d taken the portrait with him to remind him of this gift he’d been given. It showed Brian Kinney accurately; his face greying and worn. The portrait was 86 years old and looked it. It looked like Brian should look. Half-dead, half gone, lines and scars and wrinkles and blemishes and all those things that Brian had wished gone were there. The rose was a black ash on the carpet, even as it lay in his palms now, still pristine and fresh. He pressed the wooden thorns to his palm and watched blood and tears appear on the portrait and grinned with a touch of sadism. He escaped that. He was lucky. 

He looked at the broken nose on the portrait from that blow he’d been given. Why did he so desperately want to find that kid? That kid who threatened him with feeling and a soul. And, God help him, aging and decadence. 

He worried his bottom lip. He knew the answer.

He lived to feel. He’d trade this glamour and youth for a soul and he knew it. This was just too pathetic. He’d just been another vain sucker, the only difference being he'd been given the power to screw it up. But he didn’t hate himself for that.

He couldn’t

 

*/*

 

Earlier that night…

“What a jerk!” Justin spat vehemently, elbowing his way to the bar.

“What’s wrong, honey?” Emmett asked, slurping on a Cosmo.

He huffed, “Nothing. Just a tweaked out asshole fucking near attacked me on the street.”

“Are you okay?” Michael asked, grabbing his shoulder and looking him over for any injury.

He smiled at Michael gently. They’d known each other since they were little. Justin’s parents were killed in a driving accident. A truck driver had fallen asleep and run his parents car clean through. Deb, Michael’s mom, ran a foster home and was the only one kind enough to take in three other kids. There was Emmett, who had run away from his home in Hazlehurst because of his abusive step-father and him and his sister Molly, who was two years his junior. The home was chaotic but loving one, and Justin and Molly’s inheritance had been enough to put them through school while Emmett had to live off Deb’s philanthropy. Everyone had gotten summer jobs at the diner to help pay. They were like the fucking Brady bunch: a family all working in one place. 

“Yeah, I got him in the face before he could do any damage.”

Emmett winced on the grabby guy’s behalf. When Justin got attacked after prom, he’d been beaten to near-death. The only reason it wasn’t to death was because Michael, Emmett and Ted (another senior who’d taken Molly as a favour) had tackled the attacker to the floor while Molly screamed wildly for help before realising she had her mobile phone and called 911. 

When he came out of hospital he was more sullen, more grim and a hell of a lot stronger. Not only that, but he became obsessed with hand-to-hand combat and martial arts. He joined Tae Kwon Doe classes at the community college and trained like mad. He made it to black belt in two years; a record in Pittsburgh. He wanted to go onto bigger things, wanted to go on with it as some kind of career. Everyone was tentatively supportive until Deb grabbed him by the ear and asked him what the hell he was doing, what happened to that sweet little artist who liked to paint so much?

“He got bashed to death, Deb!” Justin had screamed, “He was too fucking weak!”. He’d shaven his hair short, so the scar where his head nearly cracked open throbbed visibly.

“You’re not dead!” she’d cried, grabbing at him.

“Aren’t I?” he’d demanded wildly, before just collapsing in on himself and crying. Full-on sobbing and convulsions, Justin’s unnaturally large muscles twitching as he pressed his hands to his face. Emmett had had front row seats to the whole ordeal. 

It was a bad few years, but they’d gotten through it. Justin grew his hair out and stopped training, but he still had some muscles left and hadn’t forgotten how to say, throw a good uppercut or knee someone in the face.

“Ouch!”

He flashed a smile Emmett’s way, “I hope so. Fancy a dance?”

Emmett smiled, “Sure.”

He laughed openly as Justin spun him in dizzying circles. It was different now. They were happy, and nothing, _nothing_ , was going to change that. 

Except that it was.


	4. The Portrait

_A/N: Sorry, this is gonna be more gradual than I anticipated. I hope no-one minds. I’m sorta changing the pace, so this is gonna have suggestions on Brian/Michael for awhile, but not in a romantic way, but if that squicks you… I dunno, keep reading?_

* * *

It had been two days. _Two whole days_ , and it was if that kid had disappeared off the face of the earth. Brian had spent two evenings in Babylon, not dancing, not even fucking, but asking around for the illusive kid. 

“He looks about fourteen,” Brian had said, drumming his fingers on the bar, “Light blonde hair, long but er, not too long…”

The people he asked either had no clue who he was talking about, looked like they knew but were steadfastly refusing to tell him, or insisted that they themselves were better than any fourteen year old.

“Someone like you doesn’t need the lawsuits…” A tall, thirty-something redhead with a tongue ring tried to purr seductively. Brian’s face twisted in distaste and he turned away and stalked off.

It wasn’t until he absently slapped away the third pair of hands trying to undo his belt that he realised he wasn’t actually in the mood for sex. He wanted that kid. Wanted, wanted, _wanted_. And not having what he wanted was quickly becoming the worst feeling on Brian’s whole spectrum of feelings.

Which, granted, wasn’t that big a spectrum. But still, he wasn’t used to not getting what he wanted. If he wanted some new-fangled toy, he’d buy it, if he wanted to fuck someone, he’d fuck them. Now he couldn’t even find the thing he wanted to fuck. He felt edgy and out-of-sorts.

“Fuck this,” he muttered, pushing himself off the bar.

He felt like pretending to eat.

._

“Two pink plate specials for their royal highnesses on table twenty-four!” Molly hollered, tucking the order into the wheel and ringing the bell. Her hair was done up in a thick plait but small wisps escaped and got her in the eyes. Aside from that, and most of her physical attributes, she was the splitting image of Debbie Novotny. She took to waitressing like a duck to water. She could handle difficult customers, take orders quickly and politely and she was good at thinking on her feet. On top of all that, she enjoyed it.

“Hey!” table twenty-four chorused indignantly.

She ignored them and moved onto the next table, popping the bright blue gum bubble she’d just blown with a matching blue nail, “Hi! How are you?”

“We’d like a char-grilled-“

“Hey, Mollusc!” Michael called, sticking his head out the freezer, pencil tucked neatly behind his ear, “Mom wants to know if you’ve finished your homework!”

Despite the fact they were all close, Michael and Molly were the closest. Perhaps because emotionally, Michael had always been a bit behind, and they always felt a bit left out when everyone had locked themselves up in their rooms, music playing at full volume when all Michael and Molly wanted to do was go to the public pool or play football down at the park. By the time they were old enough to appreciate the opposite sex, they realised that neither of them did together. They were almost inseparable. 

“Tell her yes!”

“Including that essay thingy?”

She rolled her eyes, “I did the plan and the introduction! It’s not due til next week!”

“Mom says okay!”

“Thanks Mikey!” She turned back to her customers, “Now, what’ll it be?”

The door tinkled open and Molly ignored it; people came in all the time, her job was to make sure she serviced them in the right order, otherwise things would get ugly. There was the occasional customer who didn’t mind being missed for a few minutes longer; those were the good ones. The ones Molly called by their first name and made jokes with. Number twenty-nine was not one of those people.

“Can I get service over here _some_ time today, please?”

He said please like an insult and she sneered as she continued to take number twenty-six’s order, “Wait like everyone else, buddy. Those are the rules.”

“I’ve been waiting for—“

“Look, it’ll take you five minutes to make an order, but it’ll take you half a minute to walk out the door. Your choice.”

Emmett, who was carrying two pink-plate specials and wearing a shirt that said ‘Boys Boys Boys’, passed her and grinned, “Meeow, Mollusc.”

She shot him a half smile and continued to write down yet another order, “So that was a split pea soup, and a pumpkin: no cream with- _acck_!” Someone had grabbed her from behind and before she knew what was happening, Emmett had her pressed into the wall behind the counter near the till. 

“Uh, Em, I’m flattered but…”

His face twisted in disgust, “Eww, no! _God_ no! Mollusc, did you see that guy’s head you were biting off?”

She frowned, “No.” She broke into a grin, “Why? Is he ugly? I bet he’s ugly, ooh, lemme see!”

He restrained her, “No, no, no, no, far from it. He’s Brian Kinney!”

“Brian ohhhh…” she said, “Brian Kinney!? THE Brian Kinney! CEO of Kinnetic Enterprises!? No shit!”

“I know,” Emmett squealed, before moaning deep in his throat, startling Molly, “God almighty he is hawwwt!”

“He’s a jerk,” she pointed out, “But he’s also a multi-billionaire. What the heck is he doing here?”

Emmett snapped out of his glassy-eyed stupor to think on it, “Maybe he’s slumming? Oh, please let him be slumming…”

She giggled.

“Hey, you two, what d’ya think this is, an ice-cream social? Get back to work!” Deb called as she and Michael came out of the freezer.

‘Ice-cream social?’ Michael mouthed to her, before pulling a funny face. She giggled again as she and Emmett hurried back to their places. She took several more orders before approaching Brian Kinney’s table. She swallowed and relaxed. This was just another customer.

“Can I help you?” she asked genially, blowing an impressively big bubble before sucking it back in.

He eyed her coldly, “So, you felt generous enough to finally join me, did you?”

“Well, I’m nothing if not a philanthropist,” she said flatly, playing along, “Would you like to place an order…”

“Hey Mollusc!” Deb called.

“Yeah?”

“When is Sunshine coming in?”

She rolled her eyes and shot Mr Kinney an apologetic look, “Check his roster, Deb!”

“He hasn’t filled in that thing since 1995!” 

“Okay well, I think he mentioned something about not er, coming in tonight…”

“What!? That’s the…”

“Deb, please! I’m trying to serve a customer here! Can we talk about this later?” She didn’t wait for a response before turning back to her customer, “Sorry about that. What did you want?”

He looked like he wanted to say a thousand things, all scathing, so she almost flinched when he opened his mouth.

It turned out to be: “I’ll have a cheeseburger and fries.”

._

This was ridiculous. Why in god’s name was he here? The waitress was a tiny girl with a big mouth and insisted on being interrupted at every turn, the guy who brought him the food blushed and mumbled, and dropped three fries on his lap while he put down the plate. It was impossible for him to be mad, so he just glared. 

The place was a dump: too cozy and cluttered and warm for his tastes, and the food wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t worth the aggravation of getting served. Dammit, he was so sure this was where he was supposed to be, but there was no reason for him to be here.

“I’m signing off for the night, Ma!”

Well, maybe one. He looked the dark haired man up and down. He was cute, and that black shirt he was wearing was doing him a tonne of favours. As far as Brian could tell from the front of his jeans, he had an okay-sized cock, but he was a bottom for sure. Even if he wasn’t, he was going to be. Brian Kinney never bottomed, never had, never will. 

Even during his years of innate boredom, he never was even slightly curious to find out what it would be like to bottom. The idea of giving himself over to someone so completely was… unnerving, almost to the point of disgust. 

He pushed away his half-eaten meal and dropped a couple of hundreds down as a tip, before approaching the till. 

‘Michael Novotny,’ he said to himself, reading the man’s nametag, ‘This is your lucky night.’


End file.
